1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disc cartridge that houses a disc such as optical disc, magneto-optical disc or the like, and a method of assembling a shutter to the disc cartridge.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, there are widely used disc cartridges each of which has a disc-shaped recording medium such as optical disc housed rotatably therein and is to be loaded in a disc recording and/or playback apparatus with the disc-shaped recording medium being kept housed in the disc cartridge. The disc cartridge of this type can protect the disc-shaped recording medium housed in a body thereof, and facilitate loading and unloading of the disc-shaped recording medium into and from the disc recording and/or playback apparatus.
In many disc cartridges of this type, the body thereof housing a disc-shaped recording medium is formed from a pair of upper and lower halves molded from a synthetic resin and butt-joined to each other. Also, to enable the disc cartridge to be inserted into a disc recording and/or playback apparatus with the disc-shaped recording medium being kept housed in the body, the cartridge body has formed therein a driving aperture through which the disc-shaped recording medium is to face a turn-table included in a disc rotation driving mechanism that rotates the disc-shaped recording medium, and a write and/or read aperture through which part of the signal recording area of the disc-shaped recording medium is exposed to outside in a range between inner and outer radii thereof.
To protect the disc-shaped recording medium housed in the body of the disc cartridge, it is proposed to provide, on the disc cartridge body, a shutter member to open and close at least the write and/or read aperture (as in the Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2003-2813880. The shutter member is installed slidably on one of laterals sides of the cartridge body. The disc cartridge is slid by a shutter moving mechanism also provided on the body in a direction to close the write and/or read aperture before the disc cartridge is inserted into the disc recording and/or playback apparatus, and in a direction to open the write and/or read aperture after the disc cartridge is inserted into the disc recording and/or playback apparatus.
However, installation of the shutter member on any of the upper and lower halves of the cartridge body, not yet butt-joined to each other, will complicate a next step in which the pair of halves is butt-joined to each other. That is, the shutter member has to be installed after the upper and lower halves are butt-joined to each other.
On this account, the shutter member should be constructed to easily be installable to the cartridge body formed from the upper and lower halves butt-joined together and not to be disengageable from on the cartridge body when being slid.